Turkey plans to standardize procedures at customs gates to speed up border transactions and unclog long truck lines, according to the Hürriyet Daily News.
Customs and Trade Minister Nurettin Canikli has ordered ministry officials to prepare a project to renew all 17 of Turkey’s customs gates as of next year, and renovate customs gate buildings and technology, according to a source close to the matter, Hürriyet Daily News reported.
The customs procedures of Turkey, which borders eight countries, have been criticized recently because of long lines caused by bureaucratic procedures and smuggling allegations, particularly after escalated violence in Syria, with which Turkey shares its longest border, Hürriyet Daily News said. For example, at a Turkish checkpoint in Kapikule, Bulgaria, the biggest border crossing from Turkey to Bulgaria and other European Union countries, truck lines Sunday stretched for 7.5 kilometers (about 4.7 miles), according to Turkish customs, the Bulgarian publication bTV reported.
The biggest change will be in the handling of passage transactions, according to Hürriyet Daily News. There are currently six different transaction points when a vehicle enters and exits the country, but now vehicles will be handled instead at single points.
Turkey’s burden of customs procedures was ranked No. 83 out of 144 global economies, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2014-2015. The country’s economy grew at a slower pace than expected in the second quarter of 2014, following months of political uncertainty and violence in Iraq and Syria, FT.com reported. Its gross domestic product growth slowed to 2.1 percent in the second quarter, below most forecasts and down from a revised 4.7 percent year-over-year gain in the first quarter, according to the publication.
This is from the 13 October 2014 edition of Journal of Commerce and is available at:
http://www.joc.com/regulation-policy/customs-regulations/international-customs-regulations/turkey-standardize-customs-procedures-expedite-processing_20141013.html